The questions we get asked most, answered without a sales pitch. If something here is wrong or has moved on, tell us and we will fix it.
Six longer answers. Each one is written to be useful on its own, whether or not you ever talk to us.
myFitment closes on 30 September 2026 with no export tool. What stops, and what to do before it does.
An honest comparison after the myFitment closure. It starts by telling most sellers not to buy anything.
The published Auto Care tiers, what moves an outsourced quote, and what is never in the number you are given.
Eight checks on your own catalogue, six of which run in a spreadsheet. Rank the failures by what they cost.
How a chassis number becomes an OEM part number, and why a free VIN decode is not the answer on its own.
What spec really means, which systems genuinely diverge, and which are the same part in a different box.
An auto parts catalog is the structured record of every part a business sells: the part number, the brand, what the part is, and every vehicle it fits.
The fitment side is what makes it hard. One brake pad can fit hundreds of year, make, model, engine and trim combinations, and each one has to be recorded correctly or the part will be sold to the wrong car.
They are the North American data standards published by the Auto Care Association.
ACES, the Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard, describes which vehicles a part fits. PIES, the Product Information Exchange Standard, describes the part itself: attributes, packaging, images and pricing.
Marketplaces and distributors expect both. A catalog that does not meet them is difficult to sell through any channel, which is why cleaning up to ACES and PIES is usually the first job worth doing.
What it costs is a separate question, and the parts of it that are published are worth knowing before anyone quotes you: what ACES and PIES actually cost, all in.
Before you pay anyone, it is worth knowing how bad your own data actually is. Eight checks, six of which run in a spreadsheet: how to audit your own fitment data quality.
An EPC is the searchable front end a counter clerk, workshop or buyer uses to find the right part, usually by vehicle, by diagram or by part number.
An EPC is only as good as the fitment data behind it. Most complaints about an EPC turn out to be complaints about the catalog data underneath it.
In practice it is four steps.
Most sellers come unstuck on the first two and blame the last two.
eBay Motors matches parts to vehicles through its own fitment compatibility data. A listing needs a valid category, the required item specifics, and a compatibility list.
Parts listed without compatibility data are far harder to find, because most buyers filter by their vehicle before they look at anything else.
GridX Connect is an authorised eBay listing tool. It lists directly into eBay Motors and publishes the compatibility list with each listing.
eBay is closing myFitment on 30 September 2026, and Fitment Plus Auto now edits seller listings automatically. We have written that up in full: who controls your eBay fitment, and who pays when it is wrong.
The principle is the same everywhere. The format is not.
Amazon expects its own automotive flat file with Part Finder fitment data. Shopify has no native fitment model at all, so parts sellers usually add one through an app or a metafield structure.
Either way the work is the same: map a clean ACES and PIES catalog onto that channel's rules. GridX Connect is live on eBay Motors today, with Shopify listed as coming.
Because the part did not fit, not because it arrived damaged. The usual cause is a year, make, model, engine or trim value that did not match. A return like that is paid for twice, once in freight and once in the buyer's trust.
You will see 86 percent quoted for this across the industry. We have chased it and we are not going to repeat it as fact. Every source we followed leads back to a company selling fitment software, with no published methodology and no primary study behind it.
The mechanism is real and the standards bodies document it. The specific number is not something we can stand behind, so we do not use it.
A VIN identifies the exact build of a vehicle, including its options and the market it was sold into. That is usually what separates one part variant from another.
Decoding the VIN, resolving it to an OEM part number, and then to the aftermarket cross references, is how procurement stops guessing. Aux AI does this for the UAE aftermarket, and refuses to guess where a variant is genuinely ambiguous.
The trade in the Gulf calls it the chassis number. We have written up the whole path, including where a free catalogue is genuinely enough: chassis number to part number.
In this region there is a second question underneath it, because the same model can be built for different markets: GCC spec, American spec and Japan import, and which parts actually differ.
GridXinfo is a directory of verified UAE automotive parts suppliers, searchable by company, brand and location, covering car parts and truck parts across the seven emirates.
It exists because sourcing in the region still runs largely on personal contacts rather than on a searchable market.
Send us a parts file and we will show you what breaks.